


Kept Safe

by Karis_Artemisia_Judith



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Discworld References, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, super subtle Discworld cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3228764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karis_Artemisia_Judith/pseuds/Karis_Artemisia_Judith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don’t, Anna. It’s done. I killed a man. I knew the consequences."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [upthenorthmountain (aw264641)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aw264641/gifts).



Anna shivered in the cool, damp air of the dungeons, wrapping her arms around herself. Her bare toes were freezing, but shoes would have made too much noise. She didn’t want to attract the attention of the guards.

The cell she was looking for was the last one, and its occupant looked up sharply when she gasped. “Anna?”

The candle in her hand shook, threatening to go out, and she hastily set it down, sinking to her knees by the row of bars. Kristoff stayed where he was against the far wall of his prison. His face was in shadow, but Anna could see his eyes, intent on her. “You shouldn’t be here, Anna. You should go.”

"I can’t—I needed—I have to tell you I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I—" She choked covered her mouth with her fingers, shoulders hunching against a sob.

"Shh, c’mere…don’t cry." She heard him shifting and suddenly she could smell the musky scent of him, feel the warmth from his skin as he reached out between the bars to wipe gently at her tears. Anna laid her cheek against his palm, clutching at his strong wrist. There was a hiss of pain and she pulled back.

"What did they do to you?" she whispered, tugging at his sleeve so that she could see the ring of red flesh, rubbed raw and edged with purple bruises. "Kristoff…"

"It’s nothing. The manacles were a little tight, that’s all. "

"This is my fault," she said. She kissed the inside of his wrist delicately, her lips trembling. "This is all my fault."

"Shh. Don’t worry about me."

"But—Kristoff—they want you dead. They’re making demands—and I tried to explain to Elsa, and she believes me, she does, but she’s afraid there might be a war, and—if I’d just been braver…if I hadn’t been so gullible and stupid and—"

"Don’t," he said roughly. His fingers moved to grip her shoulder. "Don’t, Anna. It’s done. I killed a man. I knew the consequences."

Anna bowed her head, tears slipping down her cheeks and falling to speckle her skirt like raindrops. She felt him take her wrist gently, pushing down her sleeve as she had done with his, exposing pale, unmarked skin of her arm. Work-roughened fingertips stroked the underside of her wrist, down to her elbow. A month ago, the skin had been black with bruises. A month ago, she had stumbled in the market place, and a familiar hand had caught her arm to steady her. A month ago, she had screamed with pain at the touch. Kristoff’s face had been white—he thought at first that  _he_  had hurt her, he had stripped back her concealing sleeve before she could stop him. He had  _seen_.

His voice had been low and perfectly even and so very, very calm. “Who did this?”

She hadn’t answered. She hadn’t needed to. Anna could see the knowledge in his face.

"You can’t stay with him."

"He’s my husband."

"Your sister—"

"Doesn’t know. No one knows. I can’t—" She’d been shaking too hard to refasten her cuff, and after a moment he’d done it for her. When she spoke she addressed his boots instead of his face. "He explained to me," she said softly. "He explained what would happen, if I ran away. If I tried to end things. What he would do to me. To Elsa. What his country would do to Arendelle. I can’t…I can’t."

"Anna—"

"I have to go."

She’d run from him, from the pain she couldn’t bear to see in his eyes, the mix of fury and tenderness on his face. She’d run, and two weeks later he’d been found standing over the dead body of her husband, the bloody knife still in his hand. He hadn’t even struggled when the guards had bound him and dragged him away.

"I’m sorry," she whispered again, and he drew her hand to the bars so he could press it to his lips.

"You’re safe now," he said softly. "That’s all that matters."


	2. Chapter 2

"On your feet, Bjorgman—it’s time."

Kristoff stood up slowly, his lips pressed into a thin line. He’d had weeks to prepare for this, weeks to examine every one of his regrets until they were worn thin. They’d dropped away as the days had passed until there was just one left: He wished that he’d had a chance to kiss her. Just once.

The door of his cell swung open with an agonized creak. He stared over the heads of the guardsmen and waited grimly for the shackles, for the shoves that would direct him out to the hill where the gallows would have been built. He wondered if she’d be there. God, he hoped not. As much as he wanted to see her, wanted her face to fill his vision and block out everything else, he didn’t want her to see  _him_. He didn’t want her to see….The shackles clattered on the floor and Kristoff blinked. One of the guardsmen was at the door, watching the corridor, and the other one was…taking his clothes off.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Queen’s orders, sir," the guard said, hopping on one foot to get his boot off. Kristoff gaped at him. The smell of tobacco smoke suddenly filled the air and the guard stopped hopping and came to attention, saluting smartly despite his bare chest and one bare foot.

A grizzled older man stood in the doorway, cigar clenched in his teeth. He wore a guardsman’s uniform, but it was accented with extra scarlet rope and gold leaf on the breastplate, as if someone had wanted to show that  _this_  was someone with authority, and they thought that the way to display authority was to make the person look like a bit of a tit. The real authority was in the way the man wore the fussy outfit, as if he was oblivious to it. He looked like the kind of man who would roll up his sleeves and wade into a bar fight, possibly using the silly decorative braid as a garrott if necessary. Something about his stance said ‘this breastplate may look shiny and new but I will not hesitate to put a few dents into it, possibly with your head, so don’t test your luck.’

"Right, we don’t have much time," he said. "Carry on, corporal. And you," he pointed his cigar at Kristoff, "strip."

“ _What_?”

"Change clothes. Give your clothes to Corporal Gulrot here, who is the only guard the same height as you, and put on his uniform."

"Why?"

"Queen’s orders, man. You can’t walk out of here looking like a prisoner, can you?" Kristoff frowned at him, and the man sighed. "Look, it’s going to happen like this. You put on his uniform, we give him and Knott over there a few convincing bruises, and then you and I walk out of here. We go on a little stroll, and in a little place I know near the gate we’ll stop in for a visit, you change into an outfit suitable for a farmer, and off you go on a cart with a friend of mine. He’ll take you up the mountain and drop you off at a certain milestone, where a sled and a certain obnoxious reindeer will be waiting. And you will disappear. Got it? We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this and if it’s going to work you had better start changing your clothes right now."

Kristoff changed. The guard captain looked him over, the shrugged. “It’ll have to do.” They left the other two guards nursing black eyes in the dungeon, where they would wait a suitable amount of time before raising the alarm.

As they walked briskly away from the castle, Kristoff looked back over his shoulder.

"She couldn’t know, lad," the captain said. "It’s very important that she not know anything. One of the ladies in waiting is a spy, and we arranged for the princess to be in her company every moment of the last two days. No one will be able to claim she had a hand in it."

"She’ll be safe."

"Yes."

"But I can never come back."

"Afraid not."

Kristoff nodded, and resolutely turned his face away from the castle.

"As long as she’s safe."


	3. Three Years Later

Anna rode hard, and rode fast, feeling the wind lift the braids from her shoulders and make her riding skirts flutter. The air was cold and clear and she breathed it in as deeply as she could. It cleared some of the cobwebby clutter from her mind, the tension from her shoulders. Three years, she’d had to play a part every day. Three years watching every word, every gesture, knowing that spies were watching. Three years of staying up late into the night, holding secret conferences with Elsa and her trusted counselors, plotting and planning, writing carefully worded letters, praying. The death of her husband had sent a wave of political dominos tumbling, although more and more she could see how long those dominos had been standing ready. She wondered, sometimes how long it would have been before someone else had tipped over the first one. She wondered how much one man’s act of justice had upset the machinations of whole countries. How much of a headstart it had given them.

She wondered how much Arendelle owed to Kristoff.

What she owed him, Anna knew she couldn’t measure, but she did know that when she woke up during the night with her heart pounding and tears cold on her face that what comforted her most was the memory of a calloused hand cradling her cheek. A soft voice that warmed the chill of the dungeons. ‘ _You’re safe_.’

Days had gone by in a haze of grief that, fortunately, was generally interpreted as grief for her husband. A widow dressed in black, prone to fits of weeping, to staring hopelessly into the distance, all perfectly respectable and correct. She’d nearly given herself away once, though. When the guard had arrived panting at the parlor door to announce ‘Your majesty! The prisoner has escaped!’ Anna hadn’t been able to stop the joy from washing over her face. For once she was glad that she’d also broken a teacup. By the time the bits had been gathered up she’d pulled herself together enough to hide her face in a handkerchief and insist that she needed to go and lie down. Alone in her room, Anna had pressed her cheek to the glass of the window, staring up at the mountain, clutching her hands over her heart. ‘You’re safe,’ she whispered. ‘You’re safe.’

For three years Anna had been escaping the castle to go riding, and for three years she’d turned her horse’s nose toward the mountain. If she could just keep going one day…if she could vanish into the trees and wind, as he had…but Arendelle needed her. Elsa needed her. War was on the horizon and she was a princess and, more importantly, a sister. And he was safe. But she still went as far and as high as she could every day before it was time to turn back.

Anna’s horse knew the routine. Given her head she would run like the wind, but she knew to stop at the stream for a drink and a rest before turning homeward, toward oats and a good brushing. Anna slid down from the saddle to walk a little bit, looking down at the fjord. For a long time they’d been so afraid of seeing enemy ships there, but not now. Now the political noose was tight around the Southern Isles and Elsa had the upper hand. Years of secret practice had paid off in a demonstration that if Arendelle went to war, it had winter as its weapon. The Southern Isles had gotten strangely short of allies.

She knew that they had done what was best for Arendelle. What had to be done. That she had made the right choices, that what she had given up had been necessary for the good of the country, and for him, but she had regrets. Oh, she had so many regrets. Anna’s fingers brushed over her lips lightly, and then there was the snap of a breaking twig behind her. She whirled.

He was older. Of course he was, they all were, three years wasn’t  _nothing_ , but…he was older. A little more weathered. And he had a beard, short and neatly kept. He looked different. And somehow he looked the same, his eyes still warm behind the apprehension.

"Anna," he said.

She had always been fast. Anna was flinging herself into his arms before he had time to brace for the impact, and he staggered as he caught her, lifting her off her feet.

"You’re here," she whispered. "You’re here, you’re  _here_. How?”

"I’ve always been here," he said. "I…there’s a ridge up the mountain, and I could see you riding, every day. I could see that you were safe."

"But you’re  _here_ , you—”

"I got a message," he said. He set her on her feet so that he could cup her face in his hands. "Anna…." His thumbs stroked her cheeks.

"Message," she said dumbly. "Message? How?"

"The guard captain. He’s a sharp one. He’s always been able to find me. But the message was from—"

"Elsa," Anna whispered. He nodded, and tugged a piece of paper from his pocket. She skimmed the familiar writing hastily. ‘…acted for the good of Arendelle…great service…personal sacrifice…full pardon…come home.’ There was a post-script. ‘If you are prepared to change your name, and, for instance, take the name of your wife, it will be easier for people to forget the past.’

Anna looked up into Kristoff’s face. She reached up to run her hand down his jaw, feeling the softness of his beard under her fingers.

"Come home," she murmured. His own fingers caressed her chin.

"May I?" he asked, hesitating. Anna nodded, knowing that he meant more than whether he could return to Arendelle. So much more. His hands drew her close to him, and there was nothing between them—no spectre fiancé, no nightmare marriage, no bars, not even the wind as her body was pressed flush against his chest, and he bent his head to kiss her at last. 


End file.
